Heretics (33 page)

“That is all we have, Your Eminence. It did us the favor of repeating the message four times. We derived most of the message by interpolating the repeats. Still, at best it is an approximation; we are probably missing about a quarter of the data.”

“You've done well with what we have. The reference to ‘Children of Proteus,' is that what I think it is?”

“It appears so, given Father Mallory's reference to nanotechnology.”

Cardinal Anderson knew the history of the Protean cult. They were a once-human population who saw the runaway Terraforming of Titan not as a disaster, but as a step toward some sort of transcendence. The Proteans saw the act of being consumed by their machines as some sort of sacrament—a satanic reversal of the Eucharist.

Every human government since then had destroyed the dangerous cult wherever they reappeared, destroying any attempt to reproduce the technology that formed the basis of the Protean god. Of the three great heretical technologies, it was the closest to heresy in the original meaning of the term.

Anderson had believed that the last remnants of Proteus had been wiped off the surface of Bakunin during the last violent spasms of the Terran Confederacy. The name “Proteus” had not appeared outside a historical document for generations. No government had acted to suppress anything like the Protean colony on Bakunin since the fall of the Confederacy.

The thought that they may still exist was a frightening prospect. Anderson thought of nearly two centuries passing for a culture where moral constraints on technological advancement did not exist.

What then would
they
be afraid of?

Cardinal Anderson thought of the Book of Revelation again, the unwanted stepchild of the New Testament.
“I am not about to rewrite millennia's worth of the Church's eschatology for a single event,”
the pope had said. Cardinal Anderson began to wonder.

He looked at the comm in his hand and started sending messages. He needed an audience with His Holiness and time to transmit on the tach-comm.

As quickly as he could move the information, the Church's allies needed to know that the coming war was not with the Caliphate.

Within the heart of the Ministry of External Relations of the Eridani Caliphate, in the capital city of Al Meftah, Yousef Al- Hamadi couldn't help but allow his gaze to stray to the clock display on the main holo in the briefing room. As he sat on one side of a conference table, facing a small squad of intelligence officers, he listened with half an ear as he kept thinking,
Almost time.

Much of the briefing was taken up by status reports on the expeditionary successes of the two remaining great Ibrahim-class carriers. The
Prophet's Tears
and the
Prophet's Blood
had succeeded in isolating Sirius, and it was expected that the Caliphate's weakened rival would shortly capitulate if it hadn't already.

It was a scenario that Adam had foreseen decades ago, given the Caliphate's history with Sirius, and the expansionist factions in the military. Given the tools and the pretext, the social forces within the Caliphate mandated that it would try and absorb its rival. Even when the leadership knew that the death of the wormhole network went beyond the Caliphate, by then irrevocable decisions had been made.

On Khamsin, the state of war allowed the imposition of martial law. That gave Al- Hamadi control of, among other things, the entire communications network. All tach-comm communications, including those by the military, were under the control of the intelligence community.

Adam had marked his arrival for his servant. He would come to Epsilon Eridani forty-four days standard after the destruction of the wormhole network.

On the third hour of the briefing, the comm set into the conference table beeped for his attention. Given the sensitive nature of the security briefing, the message could only be something of immediate and far-ranging importance.

He held up a hand to halt the analysts' chatter and answered the call.

“What is it?” he asked, already half- knowing the answer.

“Sir, we have the signature of an Ibrahim carrier taching insystem. Transponder and encrypted transmissions identify it as the
Prophet's Voice.
”

As one, the analysts' expressions brightened. The incursions into Sirius' domain had been the desire of the military. The intelligence services had been less enthusiastic. Most of the senior people in this room had believed it prudent to keep at least one of the carriers insystem for defensive purposes.

For them, the return of the
Voice
was good news.

It was, of course, but not for the reasons they imagined.

“Call all the cabinet-level ministers back here for a briefing, and establish a secure channel to the
Voice.
Make sure the Naval Minister is called to my office.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Also, effective immediately, all tach-comm traffic is to be queued to await approval by my office. No exceptions.”

“Yes, sir. God is great.”

He turned off the comm without responding. He faced his analysts, “We will resume this later. I have to meet with the Naval Minister.”

 

The Naval Minister waiting in Al- Hamadi's office was not happy. “What is the meaning of this?” he snapped as the being pretending to be Al- Hamadi walked in to greet him.

“It is necessary for us to speak before I allow you to communicate with the
Voice.
”

“You allow
me
?” The minister stood up as the door closed. He was a large man in height and in girth, and towered over the elderly form of Al- Hamadi. “You presume way too much. Your secret police, all your little intelligence gnomes, you have no legal authority over military matters.”

Al-Hamadi leaned on his cane and looked up into the minister's livid face. “The Caliph declared a state of emergency that placed all extra-planetary communications under my authority.”

“That was only for civilian—”

“
All
communications.”

“You know as well as I that your power doesn't extend to military communications.”

Al-Hamadi smiled. “Then why are you arguing the point with me, and not with the Caliph's deputies?”

The Naval Minister sucked in a breath and backed down. “This is not the time for that kind of power struggle.”

“No, it is not. We are on the verge of history here. Petty arguments over bureaucratic niceties do not become us.”

“When can I have an uplink to the
Voice
?”

“As soon as we're done here,” Al- Hamadi laid his cane down on the desk and stretched his fingers, straightening his legs until the joints creaked.

“What is it you wished to discuss then?”

“Your future,” Al-Hamadi said.

“Pardon?”

“You have the same choice Al- Hamadi had.” He straightened up, shedding the infirmities that came with Al-Hamadi's body. He turned around and the Naval Minister stared at him.

“You are not Al-Hamadi.” The minister reached for the comm on his belt and stared at the inert device.

Facing him, the body of Al- Hamadi had grown younger, the skin tighter, the bones and joints denser and more stable. His voice had grown deeper. “You have the chance to join us, to serve Adam.”

The minister lowered the dead comm unit and stepped toward the door.

“This is the office of the Minister-at-Large in Charge of External Relations—I assure you we are completely isolated, completely private.”

The Naval Minister still tried the door. It didn't open. He turned his back to it to face the man who was not quite Al-Hamadi anymore. “What is this?”

“It is the beginning of something wonderful.” He held his hands out to the Naval Minister. “Serve Adam and Paradise will be yours.”

“What manner of devil are you?”

“There are no devils. No angels. Only Adam, his followers, and remnants of extinct flesh.” He placed his hands upon the Naval Minister's face. “Give yourself over to him, and you shall live forever.”

“You are asking me to reject God and the Caliphate. For what? A promise of words? For the lies of some creature impersonating Al-Hamadi?”

“But if I spoke truth?”

“You do not.”

“If I did?” He caressed the minister's face. The man's skin was slick with sweat. “If I spoke for the being that could give you life eternal, transcendence, an existence unimaginable to one of the flesh?”

He could tell by the expression that the minister chose his words very carefully. “Such powers are reserved only for God. If you spoke truth, then you would be speaking for God, whom I am bound to obey.”

“And if God told you that the time of the Caliphate is at an end?”

“I serve God's will.” The minister glared at him. “But we both know you do not speak for God.”

The creature who once was Al-Hamadi smiled. “Oh, but I do, and He welcomes your service.” The minister's eyes widened as the creature's hands sank into his flesh.

 

The time was near an end for Yousef Al-Hamadi. After enlightening the Naval Minister, he pulled his skin back around himself, showing only the elderly broken form of the Minister-at-Large in Charge of External Relations. He walked into the conference room to face eighteen cabinet-level ministers, all physically present this time. The restrictions Al-Hamadi made to the communications net limited the ability of anyone to be present electronically. So the audience was limited to everyone who had been within an hour's travel time at the time the
Voice
appeared—with the exception of the Naval Minister, who was now busy ordering every active vessel in the system to rendezvous with the
Voice
.

The door closed upon Al-Hamadi's entrance, and the conference room became secure, a larger version of Al-Hamadi's office.

Again, all the ministers turned to face him as he walked to the head of the conference table. Again, he walked slowly, leaning heavily on the cane, extending the silence.

This time the holo behind him showed an image of the outer system where the
Prophet's Voice
slid through space, following an accelerated approach that would intercept Khamsin's orbit in less than seventy-two hours. He set down the cane and spread his hands on the table before him. He leaned in, facing the eighteen ministers, the heart of the Caliphate's government.

He smiled.

“The
Prophet's Voice
has returned, and it has brought with it exceptional news for the future of the Caliphate.”

The room broke into excited chatter.

“It has come to offer you Paradise.”

The chatter trailed off and died. The Minister in Charge of the Suppression of Vice spoke up. “What did you say?”

“You have a choice. An end to death,” Al-Hamadi said, “or an end to life.”

Only four ministers ended up choosing the latter. The Minister in Charge of the Suppression of Vice was among them.

“The worst atrocities are committed with the best of intentions.”

“If we have broken any idols, it is through the transfer of idolatry.”

—
RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882)

They tached into the fringe of the system, beyond where the wormholes had once orbited.

Rebecca Tsoravitch watched as the
Prophet's Voice
came home to Epsilon Eridani and the heart of the Caliphate. She saw the system with every sensor the
Voice
possessed, as much a part of the ship as its sovereign, Adam, or the millions of others liberated from the stasis that had been the Hall of Minds back on Salmagundi. Not all of them were fully embodied yet, but it wasn't necessary. They were here, with Adam, a army dedicated to bringing humanity to His light. When they needed bodies, they would have them.

And she saw the outer system in clarity not only beyond human capability, but beyond human conception. She could see every rocky mass here, orbiting the star. More important, she saw another mass, a cloud of interstellar dust decelerating against the solar wind, a vast arc of diffuse mass that, unlike the rocks in orbit around Epsilon Eridani, communicated with Adam and the chosen aboard the
Voice.

The dust here in the outer system had begun life as part of the Xi Virginis system. In total, it amounted to several large asteroids' worth of matter that had been transformed, decades ago, to a semiautonomous extension of Adam's will. The cloud had emerged from the wormholes that had sped into the Epsilon Eridani system, hidden by the mass and energy of its portal into this system. It had emerged opposite the direction of motion, at a velocity that left it traveling into the system considerably slower than the wormhole, and at a safe distance from the impact when it occurred.

To the human observers inside the system the cloud would be inert, non- reflective, and so diffuse to be almost invisible in the vast emptiness in the outer system.

Of course, the cloud, a vast coalescing arc of matter dozens of AU across, was far from inert. Not only had it independently organized itself in preparation for Adam's arrival, it had been consuming stray matter from the outer system, transforming it into more of itself, so that the cloud was now five times its original mass and three times the size of the cloud that had taken Salmagundi.